The memoirs of a Nigerian on the path of self discovery

I am a Phoenix…

I just died, again. Yesterday. It all started last week, but yesterday just did it.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “I died!” Its often used when talking about a situation when we felt highly embarrassed, insulted or maybe even angry. Its a phrase I also use in conversations, but then again, there are times I really, truly die.

Know the Phoenix? Its a legendary bird said to have lived in Arabia in the 12th Century. Of several accounts, one has it that the Phoenix lives up to 500 years after which it burns itself up on a pyre and a new phoenix rises again from the ashes. Cool story huh? 😀

The Phoenix, that’s me. Its just that I “die” every 500days or so. Sometimes less. The reasons for death could be anything and range from waiting for something so bad it hurts, to learning a deep life lesson, the death of a loved one, or an emotional heartbreak. I’m sure you’ve experienced it before…

In those moments of “death” everything begins to fade into the background and becomes a dull black & white. You are slowed down (by the weight of the emotion) and everyone seems to work in slow-motion too. Sounds are muffled. You feel nothing, except for the pain in your heart & the sting in your eyes.

After a while, your focus becomes sharper. You are able to look at events in the past and with perfect hindsight, analyse and understand them. Your mind readjusts its perspectives, expands, becomes stronger and charts a new strategy for the future.

You begin to feel alive when the colors in your pictures return and become brighter, the sounds around become clearer and the pain in your heart becomes a dull thud; not completely gone but giving you a chance to breathe. You become more aware of yourself and people and things going on around you. You can laugh without an effort, and when that (and more) begins to take place, a new phoenix has been reborn.

And that is why I am a phoenix. I die whenever I suffer a blow from life (I am definitely not going to burn myself on a pyre!). I go through the grieving process: anger, shame, depression, longing or whatever. After a while, I get up a wiser, stronger and more beautiful person inside. I am a “Phoenix-reborn”, a “Phoenix-rebel”, a “Jesus-phoenix”!

So, that’s how the cycle continues. One can never be perfect, but somehow life gives you a chance to try to be, and even though I feel dead right now, I will wait patiently for a time in the not-so-distant future when things will be much more brighter!

PS.

I wrote a song about this process about a year ago called “A million deaths”.

Truly an incredible write up. I've always been intrigued by the phoenix mythologies but this has given me a whole new perspective to how its life can portray meanings. Thank you for this because I've just been mentally reborn.